SAILING FOR ALL

About DSSA

The mission of the Duluth-Superior Sailing Association is to offer the joy of sailing to the entire Duluth-Superior community, regardless of skill level, physical disability, or financial means. Our experienced, ASA and US Sailing certified staff provide sailing classes for children and adults of all experience levels, including beginning sailing lessons, ASA certification courses, and racing clinics. We provide programs for group sailing, adaptive sailing, and special topic sailing clinics and courses. Our open sailing hours are noon-dusk most days in our June-September season, providing many opportunities to get out on the water with our Day Sailer fleet, which includes everything from from 8-foot Optis for kids to racing boats and our cruise boats for experienced sailors. Become a DSSA member today, and join us for a fantastic summer experience!

Calendar

News & Events

I thought I would update you on all of the exciting things that are going on with the Duluth-Superior Sailing Association. Lately, we have been setting up programming and doing general maintenance in order to get everything ready for June. Three keelboats have brand-new bottom paint, and J-Fore is getting some much needed repairs.

A tentative calendar has been posted on the website (sailingforall.org). Check this for updates! We intend to post weather closings on this calendar as well as Facebook during the summer. We will be offering regular four day youth lessons this year, but we are also looking forward to four youth camps. These camps will run all-day and are taking place at the DSSA pier or Barker’s Island Marina depending on the week. The camps are broken up by age. Young sailors will learn sailing and boat handling skills, preparation for motorboat safety, environmental awareness, and local maritime history. It is our goal to develop all of our students to be confident sailors. Look for further information and details on the website in the next couple of days.

We will be continuing with race night on Fridays this year. It is intended to be a fun venue where beginning and veteran racers can have fun competing and learn about racing rules, tactics, and strategies. We are going to be using the Portsmouth handicap system (allows dissimilar boats to compete fairly against each other) so that everyone can choose what boat they would like to sail. Racing is a great way to improve your overall sailing skills.

I would also like to share with you all our new club burgee. This burgee was designed to work well with our logo, and we have our own unique design that will be instantly recognizable. Thanks to Tim Cortes Studio for the design! Under the “merchandise” section of the website, there is a great variety of clothing and accessories with our burgee available for purchase. If there is some option you would like but isn’t on the website, let me know and Garon Brothers will mock one up! There will be samples at the pier. Burgee stickers are for sale at $3.00 a piece cash only. You can purchase stickers whenever you see me down there. T-Shirts will also be available at the pier for $10.00 a shirt.

And finally, there will be a pier work day this Saturday. It is a volunteer based activity, and we intend to fix the dock, put in finger docks, and perhaps put in a few boats. It will go from 9 AM until 1 PM. If you are able to make any part of the work day, your help would be greatly appreciated.

Feel free to contact me at sailingforall@gmail.com with any questions or concerns. I look forward to sailing with you all this summer! It should be a very exciting year.

So this Friday (7/22) evening looks sunny, warm with 8-10 mph winds…perfect night for sailing. Lets gather and see how many boats we can get out on the water this Friday again. We had a lot of fun last week, with 8 boats competing in racing and a couple others just out for a sail. Heck, I’ll even bring my bocce ball set down if you just want to hang out.

BTW…for those wondering, of those who raced last week, about half had never competed in a race before, and a couple just started sailing this summer. This is intended to be a low stress racing opportunity…a change to learn new skills and practice what you’ve learned. With the Interlakes in the mix, there is the opportunity to get on board with someone with more experience and see what racing is all about.

As always, bring food to throw on the grill…I can’t afford to feed you all each week, but the grill is there!! : )

As boats are donated, I’m often curious to compare them by the numbers against boats that I’ve sailed before. If you’re one of those people who likes to dig into this kind of stuff, here are a couple of good resources for the numbers.

One place that makes it really easy to compare one boat against another is Tom Dove’s Sail Calculator: I like this one because it’s simple, no ads or other stuff to sort through. It also includes some numbers like Capsize Ratio and Motion Comfort ratings:Tom Dove’s Sail Calculator

Here’s another that that a larger database and may have links to other related boat owner forums and reviews.Sailboat Data

Finally, If you want to know what all those numbers mean : ), Ted Brewer’s design site gives good descriptions of each of the terms used.Ted Brewer Yacht Design